Interview with Joel Mokyr: "I'm Not Sure Democracy Will Survive"

 Joel Mokyr, the Dutch-Israeli-American 2025 Nobel Laureate in Economics for his work on the history of technology, is interviewed in Haaretz.  He's worried about democracy, but still optimistic about technology.

'I'm Not Sure Democracy Will Survive': Israeli 2025 Nobel Laureate Fears for the West's Future  by Guy Rolnik

“I can envision a world where democracy and the legal institutions we know and cherish do not survive, while technological progress continues. And some argue that this may really be what we need, because the greatest technological challenge we face today is climate change – and it's very hard right now to claim that democracies are handling it well. By contrast, China has been manufacturing electric cars endlessly, they've been manufacturing solar panels, they've been addressing climate change."  

Would you want your daughters to live in a technologically advanced but undemocratic world?

 
"No, but I'm not sure I can prevent it. Democracy is a modern product. Most societies in the past, including those that produced Newton, Galileo and Spinoza, were not democratic societies. The notion of democracy never occurred to them. This idea was born – or at least revived – in the Enlightenment, in the 18th and 19th centuries, and even then, it took many years for democracy to become the most common form of government. 
"Democracy isn't something that keeps evolving – there have been very serious setbacks. Between the two world wars, many countries pulled back from democracy, putting in place some form of dictatorship. Even France, which protected its democracy – as soon as the Germans arrived it all collapsed. So democracy is a fragile system. I'm not sure democracy will survive, but I'm sure technological advances will."

...

“ How worried are you about the future of Israel? 

 
"This is a difficult question. The Middle East is a huge graveyard for prophecies. Compared to the Israel you were raised in during the 1950s and 1960s, its geopolitical situation is better than ever. The threat from Arab countries, which was very real in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, is practically gone. Almost all Arab countries have accepted its existence. The countries hostile to us are, in fact, Muslim non-Arab countries – which is a kind of sad progress. 
"The big problem – the huge gorilla in the room – is what nobody addresses: Israel needs to learn that it cannot succeed in doing what South Africa tried and failed to do. You cannot live indefinitely as an occupying army without morally destroying the country from within."

Evicting Science from D.C.: the NSF building and it's History Wall

 Evidently the NSF is taking up too much government real estate, here's the story from (appropriately enough) Scientific American:

Trump Administration Ousts National Science Foundation from Headquarters Building.  Employees at the National Science Foundation say they’ve been blindsided by a plan for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to take over their offices.  By Robin Bravender & E&E News 

########

I certainly hope that the new occupants will treasure the building's U.S. National Science Foundation HISTORY WALL

 

 I'm particularly fond of tile 45 of the mosaic that makes up this mural: "45. Breakthroughs in economics inspired new software that streamlines organ matches like kidney exchanges."

Kidney exchange on the NSF History Wall

 

 Here's the description of the full history wall, and all the images.

U.S. National Science Foundation HISTORY WALL
A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR
"This beautiful mural provides an amazing visual history of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), spanning nearly 7 decades of scientific discovery and innovation and depicting NSF’s impact on the nation. This is a legacy that belongs to all of us, and to the nation.

"It is a sampling of NSF’s impact through curiosity-driven, discovery-based exploratory research and use-inspired, solutions-focused translational research. This mural epitomizes the mission of NSF — “To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense.”
 
.
1. From biochemistry to weather prediction, supercomputing and
supercomputing centers maintain U.S. leadership in S&T.
2. NSF’s next generation Arctic Research Vessel, RV Sikuliaq.
3. Carbon nanotubes have novel properties yielding new applications.
4. PCR, essential to genomics, was developed from Yellowstone microbes.
5. NSF research helps predict and prevent disasters such as wildfires.
6. Brain-machine interfaces, like retinal prostheses, promise new
applications in health and communications.
7. Shake tables, like this one from the Network for Earthquake
Engineering Simulation, protect lives and property.
8. Geckos inspire the development of polymers and directional
adhesion materials.
9. NSF provides funding to start-ups like Google.
10. The first permanent telescope at Kitt Peak opened in 1960.
11. Understanding the biology and epidemiology of vector-borne illnesses
is the subject of ongoing multidisciplinary research.
12. Ice cores provide an environmental look back in time.
13. Shows like Peep and the Big Wide World improve pre-school education.
14. With the submersible Alvin, researchers first discovered life in the extreme
environment of deep-sea vents.
15. S&E Indicators provide a broad base of quantitative information
on U.S. and international science and engineering enterprise.
16. NSF and NSB recognize excellence with the Alan T. Waterman Award,
the Vannevar Bush Award, and the National Medal of Science.
17. NSF is a leader in Arctic research.
18. NSF-funded search & rescue robots improve disaster response.
19. NSF computing history is illustrated here by PLATO (Programmed
Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) in 1969.
20. An atomic-resolution structure of the HIV capsid.
21. NSF promotes informal scientific education and literacy through
its support of programming like NOVA.
22. NSF’s SBIR program strengthens the role of small business in federally
funded R&D, as it did in cellular technology in the 1990s.
23. From CSNET in 1981, to NSFNET and beyond, NSF has supported
innovations that helped create the Internet of today.
24. NSF is a leader in Antarctic research.
25. The LIGO observatories confirmed Einstein’s predicted gravity waves.
26. The bioluminescent green fluorescent protein (GFP) from jellyfish is
a powerful cellular biology research tool.
27. Sequencing the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana paved the way for a
deeper understanding food crops and other plants.
28. The Graduate Research Fellowship Program is NSF’s longest
continuously operating program.
29. NSF support of scanning and RFID technologies, like bar codes, has
helped revolutionize commerce and connectedness.
30. Mathematics is fundamental to S&T.
31. NSF’s First Grant Book recorded awards from FY1952-FY1959.
32. NSF support of archaeology enhances our understanding of where
we come from and who we are.
33. NSF researchers are studying the global decline in amphibian populations.
34. In electronics and material science, graphene’s unique electrical
and physical properties promise new breakthroughs.
35. Vannevar Bush’s vision made NSF’s founding possible.
36. Doppler-On-Wheels studies extreme weather like tornados.
37. NSF supports GPS technology, such as the National Center for
Geographic Information and Analysis.
38. Neuroscience is a major area for NSF.
39. The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) collects
environmental data via distributed sensor networks.
40. This Design Squad App illustrates NSF’s support of informal education
and advanced touch-screen technology.
41. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, located beneath the
US South Pole Station, studies the nature and properties of these particles.
42. NSF supports potentially transformative technologies like Virtual Reality.
43. Robobees are innovative autonomously-flying microrobots that
have potential impacts in many applications.
44. Quantum phenomena can yield novel technologies in computing
and communications.
45. Breakthroughs in economics inspired new software that streamlines
organ matches like kidney exchanges.
46. The Very Large Array is a component of the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory.
47. NSF was key to the development of the MRI, now an essential health tool.
48. This block-sorting robot tests how autonomous systems discern
their environment.
49. NSF support led to the study and systematization of ASL.
50. 3D printing has impacted manufacturing, design and the arts.
51. NSF supports research into bee colony decline and efforts to
save the bees.
52. The High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for
Environmental Research is a modified jet that studies
the atmosphere.
53. Large-scale computing simulates complex systems like hurricanes.
54. Large-scale changes to seawater chemistry can damage coral reefs
and more.
55. Biometric identification—whether fingerprints, iris scans, or DNA—
is essential to security and forensics.
56. The social sciences, like linguistics, improve our understandings
of ourselves and our society.
57. In 2019, a global network of telescopes (Event Horizon Telescope)
with major NSF support captured the first ever image of a black hole.
58. With support for programs like The Magic School Bus, NSF supports
elementary and informal STEM education.
59. Robotics and automation, such that in this self-driving car,
promise to transform transport and more.
60. In 1991, NSF-funded researchers discovered the first of three
extra solar planets by using radio telescopes.
61. The bacterial enzyme, CRISPR, is revolutionizing biotech and health.
62. The 2008 Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is NSF’s latest
Antarctic research station.
Mural credit: Nicole R. Fuller

Mark Satterthwaite interviewed by Sandeep Baliga (video)

After listening to this interview with the great Mark Satterthwaite, I now understand the independent origins of the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, and the collaborative origins of the Myerson-Satterthwaite theorem. 

In the final ten minutes or so of the interview, Mark describes worthwhile future research directions (and methods:), starting just after minute 28:30, particularly about appropriately matching patients to medical specialists.

   

xxxxxxxx

Earlier interviews by Sandeep Baliga:

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Ted Groves interviewed by Sandeep Baliga (video)

Friday, June 16, 2023

Ehud Kalai, interviewed on the past and future of game theory

Computers in Econ (and in market design)

 The current issue of the journal Œconomia. is devoted to The Computerization of Economics. Computers, Programming, and the Internet in the History of Economics

It includes this surprisingly grumpy-sounding take on market design, particularly on its intersection with game theory:

 Nik-Khah, Edward. "The Closed Market: Platform Design and the Computerization of Economics." Œconomia. History, Methodology, Philosophy 13-3 (2023): 877-905.

Here's a paragraph that caught my eye:

"In his book Who Gets What—And Why, the market designer Alvin Roth pronounced firms such as Google, Amazon, and Uber to be “markets,” proclaiming, “Successful designs depend greatly on the details of the market, including the culture and psychology of the participants” (Roth, 2015). One need not actually find an example of an economist counseling advisees to skip that additional course in game theory and take up cultural anthropology to arrive at the sense that matters had taken a surprising turn: only a decade before one regularly encountered brash claims that all social science worth its salt must be reducible to game theory, with market design cited as evidence for why this must be so (e.g., Binmore, 2004)."

#####

Here's the table of contents of the issue:

• The Computerization of Economics. Computers, Programming, and the Internet in the History of Economics

  edited by Marcel Boumans, Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche, Pierrick Dechaux and Francesco Sergi
  • Marcel Boumans, Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche, Pierrick Dechaux and Francesco Sergi
    The Computerization of Economics: Three Lessons for Economics [Full text]
    Introduction to the Special Issue
    L’informatisation des sciences économiques : trois leçons pour les sciences économiques
  • Laetitia Lenel
    The Introduction of the Electronic Computer and the End of Business Forecasting at the NBER [Full text]
    L’introduction de l’ordinateur électronique et la fin des prévisions économiques au NBER
  • Chung-Tang Cheng
    From Computors to Computers: The Early History of Econometric Computation at the University of Cambridge [Full text]
    Des calculateurs aux ordinateurs : à l’aube du calcul économétrique à l’université de Cambridge
  • Pedro G. Duarte and Francesco Sergi
    Computer Operators and Software Engineers at Data Resources Inc. [Full text]
    Opérateurs informatiques et ingénieurs logiciel chez Data Resources Inc.
  • Andrej Svorenčík
    The Role of Computers in the Emergence of Experimental Economics Laboratories: Material Culture and Moral Economy [Full text]
    Le rôle des ordinateurs dans l’essor des laboratoires d’économie expérimentale : culture matérielle et économie morale
  • Béatrice Cherrier, Aurélien Saïdi and Francesco Sergi
    “Write Your Model Almost as You Would on Paper and Dynare Will Take Care of the Rest!” A History of the Dynare Software [Full text]
    « Écrivez votre modèle comme sur papier et Dynare s’occupera du reste ! » Une histoire du logiciel Dynare
  • Julien Gradoz
    The Computer and the Statistician. Computerization and the Mobilization of Scanner Data by National Statistical Institutes for the Construction of Price Indexes [Full text]
    L’informatisation et la mobilisation des données de caisse par les instituts nationaux de statistiques dans la construction des indices de prix
  • Edward Nik-Khah
    The Closed Market: Platform Design and the Computerization of Economics [Full text]
    Le marché clos : la conception des plateformes et l’informatisation des sciences économiques

  • • Symposium on Elisabeth Popp Berman's “Thinking Like an Economist. How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy”

      • Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche and Aurélien Goutsmedt
        Symposium on Elisabeth Popp Berman’s Thinking Like an Economist. How Efficiency Replace Equality in U.S. Public Policy [Full text]
      • Edward Nik-Khah
        RARG Against the Machine [Full text]
      • Thomas Kayzel
        Not Just the Economic Style: Technocratic Ideology and Neoliberalism in US Policymaking [Full text]
      • Diane Coyle
        Automating the Economic Style of Reasoning [Full text]
      • Giulio Zanella
        Shallow and Deep Economic Thinking [Full text]

Interview with Vernon L. Smith by Sami Al-Suwailem

 Here's an interview with Vernon Smith, in which he comments on the history of economics and his place in it.

Interview with Vernon L. Smith by Sami Al-Suwailem 

"Smith was born in 1927 in Wichita, Kansas. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Caltech in 1949, an M.A. in economics from the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1955.

...

"GL: In your recent book, Economics of Markets, coauthored with Sabiou Inoua, you argue (convincingly, I’d say) that “markets succeeded where theory failed.” Does that imply that economic (neoclassical) theory failed to study real-world markets well enough?

"VS: It’s more that they failed to study them at all and, in particular, failed to model price formation or price discovery in market processes.

...

"Walras not only failed to model price discovery but gave us a mechanism that required price mysteriously to be given, then used to model price change depending on the sign of excess demand. This diverted theorists from modeling price discovery and, we believe, created the illusion of progress, but it was more appropriately considered a regress occasioned by marginal analysis, which helped not a wit to address the fundamental task.

...

"GL: In your work, you argue that competitive equilibrium can be quickly achieved under very reasonable experimental conditions for consumption goods, but that this is not the case for assets where speculation may substantially distort the outcomes. Economic theory seems to pay no attention to this important difference. Why is that?

"VS: It is because standard theory tends to be insensitive to close observation: Item A is purchased in preference to item B if and only if U(A) > U(B), a theory that makes no advance prediction but rather concludes only that if A is bought rather than B it must have had higher utility value.

...

"In consumer markets, buyers attempt to buy cheap, constrained by their maximum wtp private value. Sellers try to sell dear but are limited by their minimum willingness-to-accept (wta) costs.

"The problem with asset markets is that they have a value-in-use like any consumer good but also a value-in-resale. This sets up a conflict that has to get resolved before an asset market can settle into any sort of equilibrium.

"All economic stability arises in consumer markets, while all instability arises in asset markets for re-tradable goods. Fortunately, about 75% of private products cannot be re-traded, causing great stability.

"GL: The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded in 2012 to Lloyd S. Shapley and Alvin Roth for their work on market design. How do you see the relationship between these two branches, market design and experimental economics?

"VS: They are closely and intimately related. Indeed, my work in market design was part of my recognition in 2002, and was part of my presentation in 2001 at the Nobel Conference on Experiments in Economics, the year prior to the award."

Scott Kominers on the history of matching, at Tsinghua, tomorrow

 CMSA/Tsinghua Math-Science Literature Lecture: Scott Kominers

"Beginning in Spring 2020, the CMSA began hosting a lecture series on literature in the mathematical sciences, with a focus on significant developments in mathematics that have influenced the discipline, and the lifetime accomplishments of significant scholars."

Ted Groves interviewed by Sandeep Baliga (video)

Ted Groves reflects on his career and collaborations, including his famous work with John Ledyard

 

Optimal allocation of public goods: A solution to the" free rider" problem

T Groves, J Ledyard - Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 1977 - JSTOR

Ehud Kalai, interviewed on the past and future of game theory

Here's a half-hour video interview of Ehud Kalai, by Sandeep Baliga, that touches on the history of game theory at Northwestern and elsewhere, his work on axiomatic models of bargaining, Econ-CS (and the Kalai Prize), and more.

 

Human evolution in the last 12,000 years, in PNAS

My loose impression is that, not so long ago, scholars of human evolution discounted recent changes in the human genome, pointing out that maybe the frequency of lactose intolerance had been altered by the domestication of cattle, goats, and sheep, but suggesting that recent changes (i.e. since the invention of agriculture) were rare. This may have been an anti-racism perspective, or it may be that new data have changed this view, but indeed it seems to have changed.

Gene changes in recent milennia offer a window on how human patterns of interaction, regarding food acquisition and preparation, and communal living, may even cause changes in human biology.  

Here's a special feature on the subject, at the PNAS:

Special Feature: The Past 12,000 Years of Behavior, Adaptation, and Evolution Shaped Who We Are Today

"The authors of this Special Feature focus on challenges pertaining to dietary and nutritional quality and adequacy, resource inequality, interpersonal conflict and warfare, climate change, population trends, demographic transitions, migration, mobility, infectious disease and the rise of novel pathogens, and the transformative circumstances of human biology over the last 12,000 years.

• INTRODUCTIONJANUARY 17, 2023

  The past 12,000 years of behavior, adaptation, population, and evolution shaped who we are today

  • Clark Spencer Larsen and
   

  "Based on the study of human remains from Holocene settings and the associated contexts of diet, behavior, and lifestyle, this set of Perspectives and Research Articles provides readers with new and emerging insights into the human condition and what has shaped human biology, health, and lifestyle over the course of the last 10 or so millennia. This record makes clear that human evolution and biological change, adaptation, exposure to long-standing and newly emerging infectious diseases, population demography, and warfare have continued in important ways over the course of the last 10 millennia, leading to the conditions associated with overpopulation, undernutrition, violence, and other circumstances we face globally today."
• PERSPECTIVEJANUARY 17, 2023

  Climate change, human health, and resilience in the Holocene

  • Gwen Robbins Schug,
   
  • Jane E. Buikstra,
   
  • [...]
  • Sonia R. Zakrzewski,
   
• PERSPECTIVEJANUARY 17, 2023

  Genomic perspectives on human dispersals during the Holocene

  • Mark Stoneking,
   
  • Leonardo Arias,
   
  • [...]
  • Jae Joseph Russell B. Rodriguez,
   
• PERSPECTIVEJANUARY 17, 2023

  Ancient pathogens provide a window into health and well-being

  • Cecil M. Lewis,
   
  • Mercy Y. Akinyi,
   
  • [...]
  • Anne C. Stone,
   
• RESEARCH ARTICLEJANUARY 17, 2023

  Conflict, violence, and warfare among early farmers in Northwestern Europe

  • Linda Fibiger,
   
  • Torbjörn Ahlström,
   
  • [...]
  • Martin Smith,
   
• RESEARCH ARTICLEJANUARY 17, 2023

  Population trends and the transition to agriculture: Global processes as seen from North America

  • George R. Milner,
   
  • Jesper L. Boldsen,
   
• RESEARCH ARTICLEJANUARY 17, 2023

  Mobility and kinship in the world’s first village societies

  • Jessica Pearson,
   
  • Jane Evans,
   
  • [...]
  • Eva Fernández-Domínguez,
   
• RESEARCH ARTICLEJANUARY 17, 2023

  Long-term trends in human body size track regional variation in subsistence transitions and growth acceleration linked to dairying

  • Jay T. Stock,
   
  • Emma Pomeroy,
   
  • [...]
  • Jonathan C. K. Wells,

Paul David (1935-2023)

 My Stanford colleague Paul David has died. He was an exceptional, iconic economic historian.

Gavin Wright has written this obit:

Professor Paul David died at the age of 87

"Always an economic historian, Paul soon extended his horizons in diverse and seemingly disparate ways.  He became a strong advocate of the view that historical research should be fundamental to the economics discipline; in brief; “history matters.”  The essence of the argument was captured by Paul’s incisive account of the persistence of the QWERTY typewriter keyboard despite its technical disadvantages, one of the most cited articles in all of economics (AER 1985).  “History Matters” is the title of a festschrift presented by a group of Paul’s former students in 2004, in which the editors write: “No scholar has more forcefully and influentially argued the case for making economics a truly historical social science – one that, like evolutionary biology, gives past events a central role in understanding the present.” 

"A continuing focus throughout Paul’s career was the diffusion of new technologies.  An important early paper considered the adoption of the mechanical reaper in the American Midwest.  Invention occurred in the 1830s, yet the first wave of adoption occurred only in the 1850s.  The twenty-year delay, according to Paul, was explained by the fact that a minimum scale was required to cover the fixed costs of purchasing the reaper.  Only when farms size passed this “threshold” did mechanization make economic sense.  Specialists have debated the specifics ever since, but the basic form of Paul’s diffusion model has been highly influential.  In many respects it formalized the accounts of delayed diffusion presented by our late colleague Nate Rosenberg, and thus became something of a “Stanford school” of thought in this area.  Scrolling forward to 1990, the era of the “Solow paradox,” Paul offered an analogy between the delayed productivity effects of computer technology and a similar lag in the impact of electrification between the 1880s and the 1920s.  With the IT-driven productivity surge of the late 1990s, this article also attained iconic status (AER 1990)."